Recently, data communication has become very popular. Not only data communication by connection of individuals from fixed terminals on networks, but also connection to the Internet from portable mobile communication terminals, such as cellular phones, via mobile communication networks, can be made so as to obtain access to information of personal interest and information on business, among other content on the Internet, whereby text information, images, email, etc., can be received easily through the mobile communication terminals, by giving instructions through the display of the mobile communication terminal.
It is also common practice for an information terminal of high volume data processing with a larger display device to be connected to a communication terminal so that access to the Internet through the communication terminal is made to obtain more detailed information or greater sized data.
Generally, contents on the Internet are displayed by content data titles, summary of information and the like, and in most cases, these being linked to their data and detailed pieces of information.
The above mobile communication terminals make easy internet access possible but need to be sized, from the demand of portability, only so large as to be held by one hand and allow for voice communication, so that the size of the information display screen is naturally limited. Further, the mobile communication terminals are low in data processing capacity compared to the aforementioned information terminals and low in storage memory capacity, hence display of information is limited to a small size of data such as text data, small images, which can be viewed through a small sized display screen and downloadable data is limited to small amounts. For these reasons, if detailed information or a large amount of data needs to be downloaded, full access should be made by using the information terminal.
Connection of a combined system of the communication terminal and the information terminal makes it possible to download more detailed information, greater images and download data of a grater size. However, the communication terminal should be connected to the information terminal every access to the Internet. Further, since designation of data to be downloaded must be made through the information terminal, just checking of summary information and the like, which do not need a large display, forces the user to take out the information terminal from their bag or the like.
In the above way, the prior art example has the problems as follows. When internet access is made from the mobile communication terminal, the access is easy but only a small amount of data can be obtained. On the other hand, access through the information terminal makes it possible to receive a large amount of information but needs time and labor for its connection.
In a conventional publication, ‘Information Communication System and Information Processing Terminal Unit’, disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Hei No. 11-145955, a configuration which selectively downloads music, text data to a portable terminal device via a communication terminal, aiming mainly at being used as a karaoke on-demand system, is proposed. Therefore, the portable terminal device of this system, differing from the above information terminal, is not one that cannot afford sufficient enough display function and storage capacity for downloaded data, because of the constraint of its physical apparatus size. Further, unlike portable communication terminal or portable information terminal which is always carried by the user, it is not one that has the function of permitting selection of a terminal for storing and displaying the data based on the convenience of use. In this way, since, to download data, this device cannot select an information terminal which is most suitable for storing and/or displaying the data, in accordance with the amount of data and its content, it is impossible to deal with services which become increased in amount of data from day to day.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an integrated information communication system which is constituted of two types of devices, communication device and information device, having different problems, so that connection to data networks including the Internet, reading summary of information and designation of data to be downloaded are carried out by the compact communication device while reading of detailed data and storage of the downloaded data can be performed by the information device.